A Databending Christmas

For the last 5 or 6 years I’ve gotten into the habit of sending out holiday emails with digital images that I make from scratch just for the occasion. It’s funny because I was NEVER one to send out Christmas cards, but now I can’t imagine not sending one of my digital images.

I’ve been very busy recently trying to get caught up on work and life after moving (again), so I had planned on doing a quick holiday image and getting on with my work (even though it was Christmas, yes I worked on Christmas). I went to the beach first thing in the morning though, and took some photos, planning on just sticking some type on one of the photos and sending it off. But then of course I wasn’t satisfied with something so simple. I couldn’t choose which photo to use and I had several open at the same time, I switched between them, trying to choose one until I landed on one which looked corrupt and it looked AMAZING. The was it, that was the one that I wanted to use. I clicked away for a minute and then clicked back, but it was GONE! For a moment I was very frustrated about losing it and not thinking to take a screenshot, but then it occurred to me that maybe there was a way to deliberately corrupt an image. I googled it and yes there was a way, actually lots of ways and quite a few people who are already doing it. In fact there’s a pretty cool name for it too, “databending”. I tried the hex editing method and had some success with it. The image that I ended up with was combined with an uncorrupt image of the ocean and some other color tweaks etc… Happy 2014!